IMRAN! Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Take a moment to breathe one last sigh of sadness. For Imran Habeeb is dead, and we, as a nation, must mourn his passing. Although this is actually a good thing for the show as a whole. The problem with Imran was that Charlie de Melo is so stratospherically good looking, so otherworldly hot, that his presence in Corrie caused a fatal imbalance. Actors are, on the whole, a very good looking profession, but next to Imran, everyone else in Weatherfield looked like mole people. It was like having a God wander among mortals, and now that he's no longer in the programme, we can at least concentrate on the other people rather than being completely distracted every time he wanders into shot. It means that Charlie can go off to have a fantastic career outside of the world of soaps. Liam Connor got hit by a car and is in cinemas right now in Downton Abbey II: Electric Boogaloo so there's a precedent for being Very Good Looking On Coronation Street and turning it into a Hollywood career. I'll just point out that there's a vacancy for the part of James Bond - somebody get Babs Broccoli on the phone.
IMRAN! Can we take a moment to feel sorry for poor Mrs Habeeb? Over the course of three years her husband had a stroke and died, her daughter got a factory dropped on her, and her son has now carked it under some scaffolding. That's a serious run of bad luck. I know she was a homophobic kidnapper, but does anyone deserve that sort of unpleasantness? Imran's death means that the last person who actually gave a monkeys about Rana's demise has now left the show. Zeedan hasn't mentioned her once since he came back and Gary spends all his time fretting about the other person he killed; Rana doesn't get a look in. Please note, I am absolutely not advocating for Kate to come back to investigate. Absolutely not even in the slightest.
IMRAN! This may surprise you, but I'm not a medical expert. However, I do think Imran might have stood a chance of surviving if the ambulance man hadn't performed the weediest CPR in history. He wasn't so much trying to will Imran back to life, more tenderly caressing his pecs (and who can blame him, etc etc). I've squeezed lemons with more vigour. Of course, I jest: Imran had absolutely no chance of surviving because the producers were clearly furious with Charlie for deciding to leave the show. They'd put him front and centre with this whole baby storyline, they'd hooked him up with a Battersby, they'd made him the legal saviour of the Street, and he'd thrown it back in their faces. After that, Imran had to die, and they made sure to punish him thoroughly on the way out the door. First they spent the last few weeks totally assassinating his character, turning him into a manipulative scumbag who lied and cheated to everyone. Then, when he finally died, they made sure to have it happen more or less offscreen - no big speeches, no dramatic farewell, just a collapse and he was gone. They gave Craig a bigger close up than Imran in that final scene. That'll teach you for trying to have a career, Charlie.
IMRAN! Toyah, it seems, was the one responsible for Imran's death; they were weirdly vague in the final flashback/flashforward/blue tinted moments. I'm not sure why they did all that messing about with time, rather than simply showing what happened as it happened. Perhaps they were afraid that people tuning in for the annual Britain's Got Talent death-fest might be disappointed if they weren't told there was definitely going to be a tragedy later in the week. It seems that she drove the car into the wall to try and kill the passenger, which is more or less the same thing Leanne did to Harvey a few months ago. I hope this is the start of a trend where the Battersby girls act as a kind of murderous taxi service, driving people into dead ends and causing them horrible damage when the writers can't think of any other way to get rid of them. Maybe this is how they're going to write Cathy out - Leanne gives her a lift to Freshco's and decides to smash her Vectra into a truck because Cathy was wittering on about liquorice torpedoes and she couldn't take it any more. Hopefully Toyah will still be allowed to adopt Elsie, so it's not all been for nothing; I really don't want to see the return of Baby Crazy Toyah, bursting into tears every time Abi passes with a pram, then kidnapping Alfie and trying to chuck herself off a bridge like every other woman in the Street who loses a child.
IMRAN! Corrie has been a blessing for republicans this week as it's the only corner of television that isn't Jubilee themed. Setting the entire week's episodes over the course of one day means that in Weatherfield, it's technically still May; this is good news for Jenny because otherwise she put up all that bunting in the Rovers for nothing. Actually she could repurpose it for the funeral tea, assuming Imran gets a proper send off, and isn't left in a drawer somewhere to rot like Robert. We need to say goodbye to the astonishingly hot lawyer and to grieve his passing properly. Maybe we should remember him in happier times?
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| Charlie's Instagram |
Yeah. That'll do.
The author is wondering what the point is of watching Coronation Street any more. Give him a reason to carry on via Twitter @merseytart.
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